I Am Rebel

Synopsis

Rebels, Radicals, Mavericks, Change Makers. Story of Vice is a documentary series about unfamiliar yet game changing characters who prove that change only happens when you break the rules. 4 characters, 4 periods, 4 worlds: New Yorks first crime scene photographer Weegee shines a light on organized crime at the height of Prohibition-era gang wars in New York. His photography changes how the police fight crimes. In the face of racially motivated police brutality Louis Moore hijacks Southern Airways Flight 49 to seek justice from the city of Detroit. His botched mission leads toward sweeping reforms in airport security and new awareness about this timely issue. Chemistry genius Alexander Shulgin creates a backyard laboratory where he invents over 250 psychedelic drugs, including a breakthrough tool for psychotherapy called MDMA. But when MDMA escapes his laboratory and hits the streets as the club drug Ecstasy, Shulgin goes to war with the DEA to protect his greatest invention. Today MDMA is doctors greatest hope for treating PTSD. Kevin Mitnick is the first "darkside hacker" to make headlines in the 1980s for using his "social engineering" skills to send the FBI on a cat and mouse chase. After being captured Mitnick helps the government understand computer security, and he turns hacking into a respectable career. These stories are seemingly disparate, but they share a common thread: Outsiders finding their voices in the underworlds of vice. Out of this darkness comes lightning bolts that lead to change.

Episodes

Season 1

Weegee The Famous

Weegee made an art out of documenting murders on the streets of New York during the Prohibition-eras gangland wars. As a teenage immigrant on the Lower East Side Weegee quickly realized that nighttime crime photography could become his niche. But to make murder his business, Weegee needed to pursue friendships with the infamous mobsters of the era. Lucky Lucciano, Dutch Schultz, Legs Diamond, and their cronies eventually appointed Weegee the Official Photographer of Murder Inc. But Weegee played both sides, and he also pulled strings with the cops to become the first journalist to obtain his own police radio. That radio and his trusty 4x5 speed...

Phreaks And Geeks

In the early 1980s the public came to understand computer hacking as something nefarious and dark. But what law enforcement didnt understand is that by identifying the holes in computer security, hackers help to make our systems safer. Kevin Mitnick was one of the first notorious hackers to do this. As a young "phone phreaker" in the 1970s Kevin and his friends aimed to hack into the phone system and to make it their electronic playground. However Kevin and his friends thirst for forbidden knowledge landed them in jail. As the panic about hacking intensified, Kevin became a symbol for the dark side of technology. He led the FBI on a three-year...

The Love Drug

Chemistry prodigy Alexander Shulgin left his corporate job at Dow Chemical after a life-transforming psychedelic trip on Mescaline in the 1950s. Shulgin became obsessed with chemistry that could enhance the mind and create empathy. So he left corporate science and retreated to a backyard laboratory where he obsessively worked for the rest of his life to invent over 250 psychedelic drugs. But the only way Shulgin could learn about these unknown drugs was to try them on himself and to document their effects. In the mid-1970s Shulgin synthesized a drug called MDMA and he quickly realized that the empathy-producing effects of this compound were unique....

Jacked

During the "golden age of hijacking" between 1961-1972 an average of one flight per week was taken hostage by radical activists seeking visibility and justice. In the fall of 1972 c endured racially motivated police brutality, and he sued the city of Detroit for four million dollars, but his settlement was an insulting twenty-five dollars. After being threatened by the police once more Louis, his brother Melvin, and a friend named Henry Jackson were pushed to the brink and they went on a mission to seek revenge on the city of Detroit. They proceeded to hijack Southern Airways Flight 49 with two demandsto speak to President Nixon about police brutality...